Chris has a point. Tyrese is hot but he is fairly average by TriState standards. Look on Facebook on MySpace. He is very sexy but very A train, no?

But to be honest, this is kind of the look from Atlanta to Chicago to New York. I admire his muscles and ripped physique but if any black gay man in a major city says they don't see black gay/bi men like this regularly, I cannot help but think you live in Utah or Kentucky.

@ ATL KID, my cousin has been trying to get me to come there for years. Half of Detroit is there anyway so I just might. I'd feel right at home. Matter of fact I'n on my way down 75 now. Can you have a few waitingon me in about mmm let's say 12 hours. LOL

Derrick, there must be something in the upper atmosphere. I was singing that song to myself yesterday while I was waiting for the bus.

We'd live the life we choose,
We'd fight and never lose.

Those were the days,
Oh, yes, those were the days...

Naturally, I didn't fully appreciate the song when I was just a boy. And not even the folks who wrote the song could have guessed that it would one day be remembered by men who lost 50% of their age mates before they ever even reached the age of forty.

sometimes I think I bring up the past too often on Rod's Blog, but the younger "children" need to know what it was like before the 1980s and AIDS. I honestly believe that there was more DIVERSITY in the gay world(s) than there is now. And the sexual experimentation among men who were supposed to be straight! Oh, my.

Yes, as FREELEO often reminds me--there was gay-bashing back in the day; but gay-bashing took a turn for the worse in the 1980s with the onset of AIDS and HIP HOP (hate to put the two together)...well, when I say HIP HOP, I guess, I'm really talking about Gansta' Rap.

Believe it not, "trade" was often there for the sex, not the money. Young queens don't have money to pay anybody anything.

Trade, unlike the "down low" guys didn't have a philosophy of hating feminine gays. Now, if a queen was older-- of course, the trade DID expect money (just like older straight men paid younger females--paid them something). When a queen gets up in age, well, it's "The Roman Spring of Mrs Stone", baby. Either that or tone the "queen" stuff down and find a gay man your own age to love you...if that's what you want. I want that boy like the one in the photographs above, honey.

Yes, the sexual freedom of the 1970s led a lot of us to make some fatal mistakes into the 1980s. But it was also a time when "gay" was fascinating to many in black communities all over this country. Sexual propositions were much more common that gay-bashing in North Philly, Harlem, Southside Chicago, South-Central LA, etc. When the sun went down sometimes it felt fabulous to be a faggo...I mean, gay.

And, JIM, you're so right, we may be one of the few generations in history (except in times of war) to say goodbye to so many when we were only in our twenties & thirties.

Oh, one last important point: just as it is today, back in the day, most gay men (black, white, Latino) DID NOT consider themselves to be "queens"; and most DID NOT have any interest in trade (well, not street trade--everybody had some "straight" guy you messed around with since highschool).

No, most gay men do not identify with the feminine--we know that. By the time we reach twenty-five every queen has learned NOT to refer to other gay men as "she" or "her" or "Miss Thaing". You better learn, chile, or else you'll have a rude awakening.